Driven By A Need To Give

Woman Feels The Need To Belong By Volunteering

ISLE OF WIGHT — It would be really easy for Karen Barlow to stay at home all day. Doing artwork, reading books and touching up a 200-year-old home could keep anyone inside.

But Barlow said she has to give.

"It makes you feel like you're a part of your community," she said.

So instead of spending all her days cleaning a shelf and painting a canvas, Barlow, a former teacher, volunteers at Smithfield middle and high schools, the Woman's Club of Smithfield, the Juvenile Conference Committee and the Substance Abuse Advisory Council.

She began volunteering shortly after moving to Isle of Wight in 1978.

"When I first came to Smithfield," she said, "I didn't feel like I belonged. I joined the Junior Woman's Club and still felt like an outsider. It wasn't until I got active in the community that it started to feel like home."

Now, Barlow said, Smithfield feels more like home than does her hometown, Newport News.

It's working with projects like the Juvenile Conference Committee that makes her feel like she's helping her community, Barlow said. The committee helps first-time youth offenders with misdemeanor charges such as smoking or fighting. The members assign community service and monitor the juveniles weekly. If they don't get into trouble in that 90 days and complete their community service, then the charge against them is dismissed.

Barlow has a way of helping to divert young people from doing wrong while making them take responsibility for their actions, said Marquetta Jones, program coordinator for the fifth district Juvenile Conference Committee . "She can be compassionate and remain focused," Jones said.

Barlow said she likes the idea of children having a second chance to turn their lives around.

"We don't let children be children anymore, Barlow said. "We've gotten really strict about things," she said. "If kids did things like smoking or fighting on the bus 30 years ago, there would have been a problem. Now, we call the police."

Of course, times were much different then, Barlow said. "When I was a child," Barlow said, "every single mother in my neighborhood felt like they could punish me. Now, with mothers working, kids have so much unsupervised time and people look at everything a child does with free time as being destructive. Instead of neighborhood moms being watchdogs, we let the police do it."

The community service helps the children she monitors feel like they have a purpose, Barlow said. Many times, they volunteer to help after their assigned community service is finished.

Martha Roach, president of the Woman's Club of Smithfield, said Barlow is her "right hand" and helps coordinate scholarships and leadership programs in the club.

But her work with youth is what stands out the most, Roach said. Barlow sets a great example of hard work and dedication to the youth."They need a good leader and a good role model and she's both," Roach said. "She has a well-rounded background as an artist and a teacher that she uses to lead and prepare youth for great things."

Bill Hanlon, the Smithfield High School librarian, said Barlow is the perfect volunteer. "When she first volunteered here, she said she'd be willing to do anything," he said. Hanlon said Barlow has done everything from typing information into the computer to shelving books - all exceptionally well.

"She's very pleasant and easy to work with," Hanlon said. "She gets along with teacher and students."

Plus, Hanlon said, "She always has a smile on her face."

Barlow said she enjoys working in the schools. She sometimes runs into the children she's worked with on the JCC. "They all know I'm proud of them, but most importantly, they're proud of themselves.

"Not everybody can be an A student in school. Not everybody can be a real outstanding athlete. For most people, if they find they can help others, they like that. It makes them feel needed, which some people desperately need."